Many aircraft include a number of navigation displays, particularly, a plan view display and a vertical view display. The plan view display is a top-down view of a navigation map that may display various information, such as terrain data, weather data, traffic data and navigation data. The vertical view display illustrates a side view of either where the aircraft is currently headed or what is expected along the flight plan of the aircraft.
On a typical flight the air crew selects the mode of the vertical view display in order to get an overall picture of what they will be seeing on the next leg or legs of their flight plan. However, if the aircraft is deviating from their flight plan, the information displayed on the vertical view display may not present obstacles that are along the aircraft's current track. If the air crew is attentive, they will switch to the track view mode of the vertical view display in such situation. However, this may not always occur. Therefore, there exists a need for a switching device that automatically switches from the flight plan vertical view mode to the track view mode of the vertical view display.
One attempt to resolve this issue has been to perform an automatic switch based solely on angular deviation between the angular track of the aircraft and the direction of the leg of the flight plan. However, unnecessary automatic switches may occur when the deviation is greater than the threshold limit, but the aircraft is on or very close to their present track.
Therefore, there exists a need for methods and systems for more intelligently switching from flight plan view mode of the vertical view display to the track view mode.